Favorite Words

I tend to wander the internet, collecting words with no English equivalent and then posting them on Twitter. And since it’s been a popular little series, I decided to keep a running list of my favorite foreign words here for you all to see.

Victoria, I thought I’d share my favorite word. Hiraeth is my favorite word. It means “A homesickness for somewhere you cannot return to, the nostalgia and the grief for the lost places of your past, or places that never were.”

The convenient thing with German is the fact that you can make up anything by simply putting two words together. Very useful.
Verschlimbesserung is actually a mix of two opposing words: verschlimmern (getting worse) and bessern/besser werden (better/becoming, getting better).
But we also have Heimweh, the opposite to Fernweh. Homesickness/wanderlust.
But I didn’t know that Kummerspeck existed, but, as you can see: Simply put two words together and you have your right word. It sounds very german German, not Austrian German, that word Kummerspeck that is:)